President Juan Manuel Santost has said that schools will not be introducing gender ideology following mass protests

Bishops in Colombia have welcomed their Government’s decision not to promote or implement gender ideology in schools, following mass protests last week.

According to a report by Catholic News Agency, a meeting with the country’s president President Juan Manuel Santos and three bishops took place on August 11.

Following the meeting the president made a public statement on the issue.

The bishops thanked the president for agreeing to talk with them and said that they “received with satisfaction the announcement of the National Government and the Department of Education that they will not promote or implement gender ideology in the country.”

Protests in the country were sparked when reports emerged that the Department of Education was preparing teaching manuals for schools promoting homosexuality and teaching that there is no fundamental difference between male and female.

In a statement the Department for Education said that a UN document entitled “Discrimination Free School Environments” had been published on the UN’s website in order to be discussed but that Colombia’s Department of Education would not be authorising the document.

Meanwhile, Colombia’s bishops said that the protests in the country were “an exercise by the parents of their right to be assisted in educating their children in accordance with their convictions and values.”

They also stressed the importance of respect “for every human being regardless of their race, sex, sexual orientation, national or family origin, language, religion or political opinion.”